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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] AP and black soldier fly?

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  • From: Alia Tsang <alia@dietrick.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] AP and black soldier fly?
  • Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 18:23:24 -0700

I haven't purposely "farmed" them yet (though I plan to), but for getting
rid of organic waste they are awesome. They colonized my worm bin and I
always seem to have enough space for more food waste. Someone was telling
me you use just worms if you want compost, but soldier flies if you have a
lot of organic matter to get rid of, and that seems to be what's happening
here.

I'm planning on making a self harvesting system sometime, probably based on
the one in the blog post below with a plastic bin and pvc pipe, so I can
feed my chickens with them. I'm thinking the chute would lead right into
the chicken run somewhere. But then, I don't know how many adults have to
survive to keep the population going. I might make one chute that goes
outside the coop so some of the adults make it to maturity.

http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Homemade_black_soldier_fly_bins/

I wonder how the 5 gallon bucket model would scale to a barrel.....

Alia


On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 4:49 PM, venaurafarm <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>wrote:

> On 10/23/2012 12:49 PM, georg parlow wrote:
> > I came across another nice thing to combine with an aquaponic system:
> > black soldier fly farming. Especially in low density systems (with
> > fish way below the maximum stocking rate, mainly for safety reasons,
> > or where fish is not part of the diet) it is great, I have been told.
> > The 'tea' is highly nutrien rich, and can be directly added to the
> > water (after it leaves the fish tank), with great results. The mature
> > lavae are a high protein high calcium fish food.
> >
> > http://www.blacksoldierflyfarming.com/
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetia_illucens
> >
> > Experiences with these grubs, anyone?
>
> My friend Mike submitted this to the discussion, crossposting for him:
>
> "When I have a slow day I'll dig up some stuff I have on BSF larva. It's
> the best fish food there is, assaying higher than anchovies in protein,
> minerals and essential oils. And it's environmentally benign: you don't
> scarf up scarce anchovies, depriving wild fish of their food source to
> run your fish farm. Instead, you grow BSF where there were none before.
>
> It's also about the safest fly to grow. People are naturally leery about
> encouraging flies, but this one never goes inside. It doesn't compete
> with humans for human food. It's inoffensive and carries no disease.
> Plus, it's easy to harvest.
>
> The process I learned was to put slatted floors in the hog barns. That
> way you could separate the urine, which passed through the slats, from
> the solid feces.
>
> Collect the escaping methane to run a gas dryer, and dry the feces until
> they become an odorless black crumbly solid. In the hand it feels a
> little like humus, only more grainy.
>
> Inoculate your pile of crap with some black soldier flies. They will
> love the stuff and lay eggs on it. The infants (larva) are born there
> and convert the hog poop into protein and fat very efficiently. Then
> they follow their instincts to climb up, looking forward to a time when
> they develop wings and can fly away.
>
> But yours don't. Instead, you set an inclined plane at the top of your
> pile. They climb up it and fall over the high side, into a collecting
> basin. What you end up with in your basin is virtually pure bugs. Very
> tasty, if you're a salmon fry.
>
> It's potentially a million dollar business. I have no idea why lots of
> people aren't doing this. Instead they still get rid of their hog poop
> by the sprayfield method. Smelly, unpleasant and unprofitable.
>
> Feel free to add this to your list."
>
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